Microelectronic devices, such as processors, memory devices and imagers, are manufactured on and/or in semiconductor wafers made from silicon, gallium arsenide or other semiconductive materials. In a typical application a large number of individual dies are manufactured on each wafer. Operating these microelectronic devices can, however, generate large amounts of heat. Accordingly, it is desirable to remove the heat to avoid failure or performance degradation of the microelectronic device due to excessive temperatures or a deleterious thermal environment. The electronic products in which the dies are used, such as cell phones, notebook/laptop computers, personal digital assistants and the like, often have dimensional constraints, performance parameters (e.g., optimizing transmission line performance), and manufacturing considerations (e.g., reducing depths of through-holes).
One way to increase heat transfer from a microelectronic device and address dimensional, performance and manufacturing considerations is to thin the wafers on which the devices are fabricated. Wafer thinning techniques have accordingly been developed in response to an ever-increasing demand for smaller-sized, higher-performance microelectronic devices. Microelectronic devices can be thinned while the devices are in a wafer form or structure (e.g., before dicing or singulation) by etching or back grinding material from the backside of the wafer from full thickness (e.g., 750-775 μm) to a final thickness (e.g., less than 150 μm). Semiconductor wafers are fragile at full thickness and even more fragile at final thickness. Semiconductor wafers accordingly require specialized handling during and after the thinning operation.
Additionally, the high cost of microelectronic device handling equipment makes it desirable to use a single form factor to handle full-thickness and thinned microelectronic wafers. However, many conventional semiconductor fabrication, packaging and test processes currently use tools with one form factor for full-thickness microelectronic wafers and another form factor for post-thinning processes. This prevents certain tools from being used to process either full-thickness or thinned wafers, which in turn impacts the utilization of such tools.
One conventional approach for handling semiconductor wafers is to mount the wafers on a support layer or another support structure before thinning. The support structure, alone or in combination with the microelectronic wafer structure itself, provides sufficient structural support for handling semiconductor wafers. The combined thickness of the support structure and the thinned wafer can be substantially similar to a full thickness wafer. This facilitates handling without altering the existing microelectronic device handling equipment.
Conventional methods and systems for supporting wafers during and after thinning have several drawbacks. In most conventional applications a support structure is affixed to a microelectronic wafer by coating a face of the wafer and/or the support structure with an adhesive and bonding the support structure to the microelectronic wafer. The adhesive may, however, increase the potential for contaminating the process area. The adhesive also limits the processing temperatures of subsequent processes because the microelectronic wafer and support structure cannot be exposed to processing temperatures above the melting temperature of the adhesive. Other considerations may include warping or bowing of the microelectronic wafer because of different coefficients of thermal expansion or stress states between the microelectronic wafer and the conventional support structure as the wafer and/or support structure is heated and cooled in subsequent processes. Therefore, conventional methods and systems for supporting wafers may have serious drawbacks.